"Here, the people rule," nineteenth-century Americans delighted in
telling king-ruled European travelers. Here, the people rule. Few Americans
would make that claim today. Money rules today. In 2002 Democrats and reform
Republicans took a first step toward ending money rule, passing a bill
banning "soft money," the unlimited contributions made to both
parties by powerful special interests. It was called the McCain-Feingold Act,
but I think it will come to be known as the "Save the Soul of the
Democratic Party Act." For it began a process of reform that is returning
our party to the people.

John Edwards and I have raised millions and will raise more. But not a
penny from soft money. In November, with your help, we will go to
the White House without a golden chain around our necks—something
unprecedented since the advent of soft-money in the 1970s.

Yes, more reform is needed, and, starting with full federal funding of
Congressional campaigns and a mandate to broadcasters to provide free time on
the public airwaves for the public's chief business, we will get it done. But,
thanks to McCain-Feingold, we will be free to serve the public interest as no
administration has in modern times.

When we leave office, I want it said of us that we routed the special
interests. I want it said of us that before every decision we
asked, "Is this good for America?" Not, "Is this good for our
contributors?" I want it said of us that we made it possible
for Americans once more to declare with pride, "Here, the people
rule."

That is the central message
of our party. We have no reason for being if we forget it. One Bush
Republican party is enough. "Some people call you the elite," the
President quipped before an audience of corporate executives. "I call you
my base." He never spoke truer words. That elite rules his party, though
not the Republican party of Senator McCain and his fellow Republican reformers.
The future, I am convinced, belongs to them—to a reformed GOP facing a
reformed Democratic party. But first Bush has to go. It falls to us
to deliver both parties from his elite.

Our tradition prepares us for this task. The Democratic party began on just
this note of bipartisan reform. Andrew Jackson stated our credo 174 years
ago in his message to Congress vetoing the Bank of the United States, an
eighty-percent privately owned corporation that had been awarded the keeping of
government deposits and protected from competition by government fiat.
"The rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to
their selfish purposes," Jackson declared.

Many of our rich men have not been content with
equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought to make themselves
richer by act of Congress. Social inequalities will always exist, but when the
laws undertake to add to natural and just advantages artificial distinctions,
to grant titles, gratuities and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer
and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers,
mechanics and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing
such favors for themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice to their
Government.

Jackson's target was not inequality. He was a reformer; not a
revolutionary. His target was favoritism, cronyism, inequality on government-furnished stilts.
Government, he said memorably, should "confine itself to equal
protection, and, as heaven does its rains, shower its favors on the high and
the low, the rich and the poor."

How has the Bush Administration matched up against the basic American value of
"equal protection"? Like "heaven does its rains," has it
"showered its favors on the high and the low"? The record is clear.

Senior citizens wanted a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, one that
would cover the drugs they need and lower their cost. But they had neither the
time nor the means to be heard in Washington. The drug companies had both, and
their stenographers in the Republican leadership took down their words. Wrote a
bill that gave billions in subsidies to big insurance companies to administer
the drug benefit—a "benefit" that blocked the federal government from using its buying
power to bargain down the cost of drugs on behalf of seniors, and that offered only spotty coverage. The drug and insurance companies contributed
millions to Mr. Bush in 2000 and to Republican congressional candidates in
2002—and they got what they paid for.

Citizens of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New England wanted the Clean Air act
enforced against midwestern power plants; particle emissions were killing their
lakes and giving their kids asthma. But they had neither the time nor the means
to be heard in Washington. The power companies did. They lavished campaign
contributions on the Bush Republicans, and got what they paid for—permission
to pollute till the last lake downwind dies.

Americans who perform some supervisory tasks at their workplaces but
don't belong to management wanted to keep receiving time and a half for
overtime. But they had neither the time nor the means to be heard in
Washington. Mr. Bush's corporate elite did, and got what it paid for—an end to
overtime for millions of employees.

Data processing workers, keyboarders, assemblers, and poultry workers
wanted OSHA to enforce ergonomic standards a decade in the making to save them
from being crippled by repetitive manual work. But they had neither the time
nor the means to be heard in Washington. Low-road corporations did, and they
got what they paid for; the Bush Republicans rescinded the OSHA standards.

After last year's mad-cow disease scare, Americans sought government
action. They wanted meat processors to be required to inspect every animal
slaughtered. But they had neither the time nor the means to be heard in
Washington. The meat industry did, and got what it paid for; it won't have to
make inspections costing fifty cents an animal.

U.S. manufacturers and their employees wanted the Administration to enforce our
trade laws against Chinese goods produced by child labor, bonded labor, prison
labor, coerced labor little better than slavery. But they had neither the time
nor the means to be heard in Washington. Multinational corporations that
profit from China's denial of labor rights had plenty of both. So, in the
recent trade talks with China, the Bush Administration said nothing to China
about the labor repression that lowers the price of Chinese-made goods by as
much as eighty percent—and costs American jobs. The exporters of
American jobs got what they paid for.

The millions of American workers who pay Social Security taxes but don't earn
enough to pay income taxes stood patiently in line when the Bush Administration
was dispensing tax cuts. But they had neither the time nor the means to be
heard in Washington. The owners of large estates did, and they got what they
paid for—an end to the inheritance tax on the barely one percent of estates
valued above two million dollars.

After September 11, Americans wanted our ports and our chemical and nuclear
plants protected against terrorists. But we had neither the time nor the means
to be heard in Washington. The shipping, chemical, and nuclear industries did,
and they got what they paid for. They won't have to pay for their own
protection; if they are protected at all, the taxpayers will pay the bill.

Americans worried about the future of the planet wanted the Administration, as
Mr. Bush promised, to offer an alternative to the Kyoto protocols on global
warming. But they had neither the time nor the means to be heard in Washington.
The electric industry did, and it got what it paid for—"voluntary"
emission standards modeled on the ones Governor Bush adopted in Texas and that
have made it safe for polluters.

John McCain and I wanted Detroit to increase the miles per gallon of cars,
trucks, and SUVs. But the car companies and, regrettably, their unions, lobbied
against our bill; and they got what they paid for—no change in the
standards that were adopted in the 1970s when climate change was just a sci-fi
fantasy.

Hunters and hikers wanted the western wilderness to stay pristine. But they had
neither the time nor the means to be heard in Washington. The timber industry
did, and got what it paid for—the right to scar the land with logging roads.

I could go on and on. But the point is clear. The Bush Republicans have
traduced the American ideal of equal freedom. They have trashed equal protection.
The rain of their favor falls only on the rich and powerful. "Some people
call you the elite. I call you my base."

You can't go to Washington—but you can send John Edwards and me, and a
reformed Democratic Congress. We will stop the cronyism, the favoritism,
the subsidies, the exemptions, the gouging, the war-profiteering (did anybody
say Halliburton?) We will fire the industry lackeys who staff the Bush
regulatory agencies. We will end government of the few, by the connected, and
for the powerful. We will restore the rule of the people.

"The Atlantic Monthly is an American tradition; since 1857 it has helped to shape the American mind and conscience," senior editor Jack Beatty explains. "We are proud of that tradition. It is the tradition of excellence for which we were awarded the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. It is the tie that binds us to our past. It is a standard we won't betray."

Beatty joined The Atlantic Monthly as a senior editor in September of 1983, having previously worked as a book reviewer at Newsweek and as the literary editor of The New Republic.

Born, raised, and educated in Boston, Beatty wrote a best-selling
biography of James Michael Curley, the Massachusetts congressman and
governor and Boston mayor, which Addison-Wesley published in 1992 to
enthusiastic reviews. The Washington Post said, "The Rascal King is an
exemplary political biography. It is thorough, balanced, reflective, and
gracefully written." The Chicago Sun-Times called it a ". . . beautifully
written, richly detailed, vibrant biography." The book was nominated for a
National Book Critics' Circle award.

His 1993 contribution to The Atlantic Monthly's Travel pages, "The
Bounteous Berkshires," earned these words of praise from The Washington
Post: "The best travel writers make you want to travel with them. I, for
instance, would like to travel somewhere with Jack Beatty, having read his
superb account of a cultural journey to the Berkshire Hills of western
Massachusetts." Beatty is also the author of The World According to Peter Drucker, published in 1998 by The Free Press and called "a fine intellectual portrait" by Michael Lewis in the New York Times Book Review.